Sunday, August 25th, 2013 :: 11:55 am

Last week a couple of friends and I made last minute plans to head up to Garibaldi Lake. The recommended hike was rated as intermediate with a 820m total elevation gain and an estimate of 5 hours to complete. The drive itself from Vancouver was just under 2 hours.

I haven’t hiked this long since my trip to Peru on the Inca Quarry Trail, so the distance was moderately challenging, minus the altitude factor. It was quite an enjoyable hike, but prepared to spend more time than what they estimate for stopovers and photo ops along the way! We walked the recommended loop through Taylor Meadows, took a small detour midway to Panorama Ridge, then down to the lake and back, taking us a total of around 7.5 hours.

Beautiful lake – the weather was cloudy/foggy, with some short spurts of sunny breaks in between, which was perfect. Glad that the weather turned out much better than the forecasted rain!

Shutter speed: 1/160s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 24mm / ISO: 1600

Shutter speed: 1/200s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 35mm / ISO: 1600

Shutter speed: 1/250s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 24mm / ISO: 1600

Shutter speed: 1/100s / Aperture: f/6.3 / Focal: 24mm / ISO: 1600

4km in, reaching the clouds

Shutter speed: 1/640s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 24mm / ISO: 1600

Shutter speed: 1/40s / Aperture: f/9.0 / Focal: 24mm / ISO: 160

Grey Jay

Shutter speed: 1/400s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 105mm / ISO: 320

Shutter speed: 1/500s / Aperture: f/5.6 / Focal: 24mm / ISO: 320

Starting to see a bit of flowers

Shutter speed: 1/800s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 24mm / ISO: 320

Shutter speed: 1/640s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 105mm / ISO: 320

Shutter speed: 1/1600s / Aperture: f/4.0 / Focal: 105mm / ISO: 320

Shutter speed: 1/320s / Aperture: f/5.6 / Focal: 67mm / ISO: 160

Shutter speed: 1/250s / Aperture: f/5.6 / Focal: 105mm / ISO: 160

Shutter speed: 1/320s / Aperture: f/4.5 / Focal: 50mm / ISO: 160

Reaching Taylor Meadows – can totally imagine it being filled with flowers